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The Harrowing
The Harrowing was a natural disaster that occurred two thousand years after the conclusion of the Dawn War. Terrible earthquakes wracked the planet, and no portion was unaffected. The greatest catastophy was suffered by the Land Southward, which was completely submerged in the southern Iron Sea. Cause The dark god, Kal-ithir, cast out by the other Elder Gods for his wickedness, seeks always to return. In 2000, cultists of Kal-ithir managed to subvert the peoples of the northern cities of the Land Southward, and caused a great temple to be raised south of the Guardian Mountains. There, hundreds were sacrificed to generate the psychic energy required to summon Kal-ithir from his dark, distant prison. Kal-ithir's return was marked by a period of great terror. Using all his malice, he spawned paranoia in the minds of his fellow deities, convincing them that another was responsible for the signs of his return. The moon turned to blood, demons rose and destroyed whole towns, and terrible storms stalked the land, seeking out the righteous and destroying them. The Gods themselves turned on each other, each blaming an old rival for the terrible destruction. Few records of this terrible time remain, but what is clear is that Kal-ithir's return was only in spirit, not in physical form. Such a form could only be granted by a specific sacrifice, binding the soul of Kal-ithir to the body of a powerful and willing mortal. Kal-ithir's high priest, his name long forgotten, attempted to give himself to his god in this fashion. However, as the senior cultist was preparing to sacrifice himself and his acolytes to complete the ritual, a party of adventurers was able to gain access to the temple. A great and terrible battle followed, but by the end of it the high priest was dead, not by his own hand, but by the hand of one who had not sworn his soul to Kal-ithir. Eager to return, the god had already moved himself from his extraplanar hiding place to the mortal realm, but finding no body to contain him, was easily spotted by the other deities. Attempting to prevent them from recapturing him, Kal-ithir released terrible forces upon the world, mighty rivers of power flowing from his soul into the helpless planet below. The gods, however, remembered the atrocities of Kal-ithir from before the Dawn War, and with stern faces and implacable step they approached him and seized him. Even the destruction of the Land Southward would not persuade them to relent,and they cast Kal-ithir into the deep pockets of the universe, where there is no place and no time. Consequences Land Southward The Land Southward, an area of approximately eleven million square miles, was completely destroyed. Kal-ithir's wrath destroyed a thick layer of the crust beneath the Land Southward, causing the entire continent to sink roughly two thousand feet, inundating the majority of the continent. Only a few mountain peaks remained above the surface. The Guardian Mountains were protected by the will of Moradin, causing the sheer, vertical cliffs that so distinctly mark the southern edge of the continent. Merrow Prior to the collapse of the Land Southward, Merrow was a fruitful, grassy place of smooth rolling hills and wide-open plains. With the shift of climatic patterns, the regular rainfall failed to materialise, and Merrow became a desert nation. Clandlands The Clanlands were a place of extreme weathers, with deep snow in the winters and blistering heat in the summers. However, during the great temperature shifts following the Harrowing, the Clanlands began to experience colder summers. Suddenly, the winter snows were not entirely melting before the end of summer, and year-round ice became commonplace. Within a hundred years, ancient glaciers were flowing again, and now the Clanlands is a nation of icy mountains and frozen rivers. Caliphate of the Serpent The Merrovian cities of Al-Jeddar and Purrim were settled shortly after the Harrowing, the refugees claiming that terrible destructions had been visited upon their homeland. The lack of records from before the Harrowing does, however, mean that the extent of this damage is hard for modern historians to calculate. Casualties While the total number of people killed in the Harrowing is impossible to calculate, it is without doubt the single most destructive event in world history. Conservative estimates suggest that at least five hundred million sentients were killed, but even these estimates are based on the surface population - no basis for calculation exists for the underground races of the Land Southward, and no attempt has even been made to calculate those who have died as a result of the climatic changes. Category:History